User blog:Abc8920/FitB chapter rough draft
There were many things that could make Torlo feel disturbed. Rahkshi, Visorak, Bohrok and even Krennato in the morning before the make-up could get on his nerves. But right now it was quite a different thing. Silence. '' There was a very tense atmosphere as the group that Torlo lead through the tunnel advanced, the only light coming from the lightstone that the Le-Matoran held in his left hand. The yellow light formed a semi-sphere around them, giving the impression that a golden shield was sheltering them form evil. But that was nothing short of a fallacy. For, once again, appearances were deceiving, and it would be probably easier to find evil inside them than outside the light. Torlo and Sarnii hadn’t exchanged a word since the past day. It wasn’t like the Matoran of Air was intentionally avoiding it – rather, there just was nothing left to say. Both had unintentionally engaged in a strange choreography to avoid their eyes meeting. When one looked up, the other looked down. If Torlo looked to the right, Sarnii would also do so, like if there was actual magnetic repulsion between their bodies. One could say they were practicing the dance of isolation. But at that very moment, Torlo was having enough problems inside to care about what others might say. Bitter rage was starting to burn inside him. Had it been another time, another place, perhaps another life, he wouldn’t have forgiven himself for breaking another Matoran’s heartlight. But things were not as he would wish. The Matoran of Lightning was as guilty as him for his wife’s suicide. Torlo, back in the day, had decided to take the right path – the road of acceptance. He had never denied his sins. He had taken them; lived with them, let them die away while they slowly consumed him from the inside. But Sarnii, in the other hand, had always blamed him for what had happened. She had called him hypocrite many times, saying that he had become what he had sworn to fight. Sarnii had made fun of him. She had made his darkest side appear. She had made him hit the bottom. And yet, she still had the courage to come up to him, tell him she still loved him. Just another web of lies to fool him. He could only be grateful for one thing – the moment her wife cut her own throat open, the old Torlo died, opening the path for the new, darker Torlo. The old Torlo was overambitious; wanting to end with the world’s evil, wanting to unearth the truth, while in reality his heart was as corrupted as Makuta’s. The new Torlo didn’t live to fulfil a specific role or appearance. He was no longer fighting hypocrisy – he had decided that for starters he should stop being one. Even if that meant breaking heartlights, limbs or necks. In the end, Torlo decided to stop thinking about the past. He knew that while exploring the corners of his mind, he could get lost in them. And for the first time in an eternity, the Le-Matoran surrendered to the urge of looking at the Matoran of Lightning. There she was. The same beautiful and sleek figure from the times when both furtively met. The irradiating anger from her Kanohi only enhanced her beauty. Torlo stopped that line of thought dead in its tracks. The old Torlo was screaming in the back of his head, but the new Torlo was stronger. And when the Le-Matoran looked at Sarnii again, the only thing he felt was the urge to practices torture, dismemberment, beheading, to make a home out of her bones. No, that wouldn’t be right. Torlo remembered Santis warning quite clearly. He could not let his hatred dominate him. So he instead decided to focus on something else and turned to see the two Matoran walking behind him. Iolan was, for once, exceptionally calm and quiet. The oppressing influence of the place seemed to have taken the skill of speech out of him. Perhaps the fact that he had been accepted into the group after committing such mistakes had given him hope for a better life someday. Connla in the other hand looked very nervous. The fear was strong inside her, only a façade of self-control preventing it from breaking out. Torlo stared at the Ga-Matoran for a moment, then at Sarnii, then back at Connla, and made up his mind. ''This time he would not make the same mistakes again. '' **** Hours and hours had passed, and Santis and Krennato had finally reached their destination in the tunnel. ''A dead end. '' The tunnel abruptly stopped as a stone wall prevented them from going on further. And in front of it, there was a perfectly circular hole, half the width of the wall. Santis wasn’t actually very sure what to do. Over the days, he had been gaining more and more memory about his past. Unfortunately, those flashes of memory only showed part of his dimensional travels. None of them gave any information on Tollubo, or the reason for which he had to kill the De-Matoran. But he had seen many things… and some of them were solid illusions. Created by the Bahrag themselves as a means of blocking entrances to the Bohrok nests, only those who didn’t believe in the existence of the wall could bypass it. There was only one way of knowing. The Toa backtracked seven steps, then ran and charged onto the wall. An unbearable amount of pain answered Santis’ question as he fell to the floor, his face buried in his hands. Krennato ran to the fallen Toa, a confused look in her face. “What in Mata Nui’s name where you doing Toa?” “Just testing they were Santis-proof. Do I have anything broken? I mean, aside from my faith and dignity, which you have already told me a hundred times?” “Nothing. What do we do now?” “Wait until one of your goddam myths comes to the rescue?” The Ga-Matorn gave an angry look at Santis. “Why do you have to keep criticising my faith? I have my religion. Don’t you care about your mortal soul?” “I do. My sword and dagger are my life insurance.” Krennato then started pointing at the walls surrounding them, trying to point out unseen evidence. “You are so blind. You close your eyes to Mata Nui, while his proofs are everywhere! Look at the floor you have been walking on for the past hours. It’s completely flat and immaculate! Have you noticed a single scratch, a single bump, any imperfection at all? Furthermore, look around, at the floor, at the walls, at the roof, look as far as your sight reaches. There is no tiling at all – the whole cavity is just one massive block!” Santis looked around, impressed, and touched the wall next to him with his hand. It was perfectly smooth. But the Toa of Fire had seen enough to know that this construction had not been craved by Mata Nui, for it was ''part of Mata Nui himself. No divine intervention or whatsoever, if anything, quite the contrary. Of course he didn’t know for sure, but it was likely made by the Great Beings themselves, just like the rest of the Matoran Universe. What had impressed him though were Krennato’s observation capabilities. He had seen that there was something more than myths and lies in the old one’s head – she was actually smart. Goll had told him that many years ago, when Krennato first arrived to the village, she showed her true, wise profile. Slowly she sheltered behind religion to relieve the pain caused by her blood colt, becoming eventually abducted by those ideas. Still, he had to find a way to use that covered intelligence to his advantage. “If you know your cave-paradise so well, then how do we go further?” “We go down, Toa.” “Down the hole?” “Got any better idea?” The Toa looked thoughtful for a moment, and then raised his finger in approval. “We backtrack the way we came, out of the nest, out of the Southern Continent, and spend our holidays in an Artidax beach. That sounds just about right.” The Toa didn’t wait for the Ga-Matoran’s reply, and proceeded to examine the hole, trying to figure out what might be under the layer of darkness. He threw a bolt of fire, illuminating the walls and uncovering some shallow water below. “I would say ‘ladies go first’, but courtesy is overrated. I will scout ahead first.” Santis jumped down the hole, slowing his fall by heating the air below him. When the Toa landed, he noticed that there was much more water than he had expected, reaching up to his knees. He looked around in the unforgiving shadows, noticing a faint glow to his left. The Toa then unsheathed his sword and started channelling energy through it, making it glow. With the room lit, he saw that the glow came from a Kanoka disk next to a rotting Skakdi. After closer examination of the carcass, Santis quickly discovered the cause of the death. One of the Skakdi’s legs was broken, twisted frontwards in an unnatural position. Probably he had calculated badly his fall and, once under the shallow water, he hadn’t had a chance to try again. But the most interesting thing was the Kanoka. Code 685. Teleporation. The reason why the Skakdi hadn’t used the Kanoka was a mystery, but he wouldn’t even bother using his Psychometry on it. He had a way out and that was all he really cared about. “Santis!” -the Ga-Matoran’s shouts echoed down the hole, hurting the Toa of Fire’s audio receptors- “have you found anything down there?” “Not really. Just some deus ex machina.” “Deus ex-what?” “Nevermind. Just jump down.” Seconds later, the Ga-Matoran crash-landed on the flooded floor, splashing Santis. The Toa pretended to not be annoyed, and just washed away the turbid water from his armour by increasing his body temperature and turning it to steam. Krennato looked curious about the artefact that Santis held in his hands. “Do you know how to use this?” “Easy. I hold it in my hand, we both slap it at the same time and then we’re teleported.” “What about the range? This Kanoka’s power is limited. And the destination? Do you know where to go?” “Let’s not spoil the fun.” And with that said, Matoran and Toa hit the Kanoka at the same time, bright light enveloping them. **** When the white that surrounded Santis faded out, the Toa of Fire found himself lying on the sand, Krennato next to him, as the sun closed and night closed in. Not the best scene to be seen in for sure, mostly since his companion wasn’t exactly an exotic Southern Continent beauty. But all that mattered was that they had gotten somewhere. The Toa paused once more to admire the scenery before getting up to his feet. They were in front the shore of some kind of lake with crystalline water. Beyond the mass of water, a seemingly endless expanse of jungle, cut only by a meandering river that broke off from the lake and went up north. Santis started to smile as he realised what he had just seen. That river was their ticket off this damned land. Feeling much better now, Santis rose and kicked the black volcanic sand from his armour. Category:Blog posts